[Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for the end of “Wicked: For Good.”]
The extra you consider “Depraved: For Good,” the more durable it will get to see the story’s conclusion as something however miserable.
A de facto dictator perched on her personal self-made bubble of lies, Glinda (Ariana Grande) begins and ends the two-film musical epic as an authoritarian ruler surrounded by sycophants who, figuring out higher or not, take zero subject with mocking a lifeless lady and treating animals like shit. Toss in Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) changing into a political prisoner to a pack of winged monkeys sans trial in her last scene, and the outlook for Glinda’s bright-pink morality doesn’t look so “good” both.
When director Jon M. Chu promoted the Oscar-winning first half of his blockbuster final yr, the filmmaker underlined actresses Grande and Cynthia Erivo because the narrative’s guiding stars. Protecting concentrate on “the women,” as Chu calls them, was key to constructing the emotional core of Ouncesthat resonated so deeply with audiences then. Positive, Shiz College didn’t make a lot sense as a faculty — and sure, the mechanics of magic weren’t defined effectively in any respect. However none of that mattered when Elphaba and Glinda got here on display screen. It’s a surprise then that “For Good” leaves them and everybody else on this film so spectacularly screwed.
The “Depraved” women’ friendship — a white-hot platonic ardour that would put even Jonathan Bailey and that intercourse cardigan(??) to disgrace — accounted for the world-building that Chu’s first movie lacked by way of megawatt magnetism. And but, with finality baked into its title, “For Good” needed to take the buddies’ connection someplace, and the vacation spot is ridiculously bleak. Even wielding the ability of a wrap-around narrator, somebody we knew would survive each movies, Glinda winds up able so unenviable it’s a surprise she doesn’t bash considered one of her servants’ heads in with a bookend made from jade.
Blithely unaware that her finest good friend and love curiosity really survived the occasions of the movie, the Good Witch is left alone in a sea of poppies and propaganda — with no allies. Positive, she’s bought Bowen Yang and Bronwyn James, however for all of the pointless dialogue this bloated sequel script added, there isn’t a single scene implying these two have the values or data wanted to make something apart from a cult of persona. Even assuming Glinda’s pre-coronation socioeconomics coaching was left implied on the slicing room flooring, any fan severely invested within the “Depraved” universe shall be hard-pressed to persuade themselves a materialist with a perfection downside may create a stronger authorities from grief.
On the similar time, Elphaba and the prince previously often known as Fiyero (now an anthropomorphic scarecrow we’re theoretically supposed to search out attractive?) are left to aimlessly wander the liminal area surrounding Oz. You may nonetheless kiss wading by way of the sands of Arrakis from “Dune” or wherever, however denied the dignity as soon as offered to her by that avant-garde hat (it should be left behind — as proof!), Erivo’s Elphaba fares considerably worse than most heroines in fashionable reminiscence. Contrasted with the snow queen the unique Elphaba, Idina Menzel, voices for the “Frozen” films, the Depraved Witch of the West exits Chu’s supposedly empowering fantasy as a defeated insurgent with little greater than a straw-man to indicate for it. There are too many issues right here to take that exact critique to a gendered place, however gentle an instructional match, and the barn burns itself.
That isn’t all on Chu, after all. The plot of “For Good” stays true to Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s musical to an extent, however this two-hander tragedy will get mucked up by numerous original-to-the-movie moments that really feel just like the director, solid, and crew vamping ’til prepared. That mentioned, one key change makes the movie model of Ouncesmuch more dire. On stage, Glinda is aware of Elphaba is gone — however not lifeless. She watches Fiyero assist her bestie escape after Dorothy douses her, and Glinda solely continues the parable of the Depraved Witch to guard Elphaba and Fiyero from the offended mob that’s nonetheless after them.
“For Good” confuses that collection of occasions by exhibiting Glinda’s earnest response to Elphaba’s death-by-bucket (what a lame solution to go, huh?) in a placing beat that sees Grande elegantly cowering in a closet. The movie by no means doubles again to correctly make clear whether or not Glinda knew Elphaba’s dying was a ruse or not, successfully implying she solely selected to maintain “secret” that the Depraved Witch was good to keep up energy. If everybody’s favourite well-liked woman wasn’t evil already, that’s an impressively sinister beginning block. Held captive by an citizens too callous to care about something however public opinion, Glinda crafts her life in a gilded cage. She feeds the misinformation machine as a substitute of stopping it, and just like the infinite sparkles on her robes, wears these barbed reminders of loss like an phantasm of morality stitched on her sleeve.
Sure, Chu leaves the door for a 3rd “Depraved” installment broad open. But when an prolonged model of this magical allegory about authorities corruption and political spin ever did come to theaters with the women nonetheless in tow, then Glinda’s raw-nerve psychology would solely scream antagonist the louder that lie went on. Suffice to say, her weird, “You dropped a home on my sister?!” slap-fight with Elphaba in “For Good” gained’t have a factor on a frenemy face-off that’s predicated on Workforce Pink studying Workforce Inexperienced wasn’t lifeless years after the actual fact — successfully kicking off the second sequel by choosing aside this one’s massive lie.
Not since Ariana Grande first appeared as a playable character in Fortnite has a battle appeared so mindless, and the losers on the finish of “For Good” are too many to rely. Ouncessucks, and the dominion will worsen. The identical could be mentioned for Glinda, Elphaba, Fiyero, the Tinman/Boq (Ethan Slater), the Cowardly Lion (Colman Domingo), and even Dorothy — who, after the occasions of this film, has at most some bizarre tales to inform Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and all these soiled hogs again dwelling. No less than she’ll be protected within the punishing thick of… the Mud Bowl and… Nice Melancholy in early-Twentieth-century Kansas.
In reality, the one character in “Depraved: For Good” with any semblance of a “glad ending” is the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) himself. Driving a hard and fast decision afforded to him by 1939’s “Wizard of Oz” — one which’s significantly kinder than this pro-slavery carpetbagger with an absinthe downside deserves — the Wizard will get the hell out of Emerald Metropolis on a hot-air balloon, rising towards an actual future.
Glinda doesn’t have the endurance or pull wanted to extradite a rich man from america. But when the Wizard cleans up his act with a couple of podcast appearances, and he picks simply the appropriate gerrymandered district to run for workplace, you’ll be able to belief he’d discover his rightful place in our actual dystopia run by a shine-obsessed megalomaniac. Dare we are saying, Make America Good Once more? Ask Glinda concerning the trademark.
“Depraved: For Good” is now in theaters.
